


that reminds me (of you)

by tamerofdarkstars



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Amortentia, Book 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Everyone is such an angsty disaster in book six i love it, F/M, Missing Scene, POV Ron Weasley, Pre-Relationship, Ron "one person can't feel all that they'd explode" Weasley everyone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 20:29:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20319037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tamerofdarkstars/pseuds/tamerofdarkstars
Summary: “I hardly think that knowing what the amortentia smells like for me will help your understanding of how to brew it,” snapped Hermione.





	that reminds me (of you)

**Author's Note:**

> OOTP: i have the most teenage angst in the entire HP series
> 
> HBP: hold my butterbeer and watch this

“So, let’s have it then. What did it smell like?”

Hermione looked startled by the question, almost as startled as Ron himself felt asking it. He couldn’t quite explain _why_ he wanted to know – only that as Hermione had faltered during class in her explanation of the amortentia, trailing off and turning faintly pink, something inside the pit of Ron’s stomach had seized up, going all twisted and tight. He wanted to know. He _really_ wanted to know.

“None of your business, Ronald,” sniffed Hermione, curling her fingers around the strap of her bag and gripping it tightly, as if for comfort. Ron scoffed.

“Oh, come on. It can’t be _that_ embarrassing. Oi, Harry. Don’t you think she should tell us? For learning and what not, yeah?”

But Harry didn’t seem to be listening, trudging along beside him as they made their way up out of the dungeons and back into the castle proper. Ron followed his gaze and caught a glimpse of something pale and distinctly weasel-like vanishing around a corner.

“I hardly think that knowing what the amortentia smells like for me will help your understanding of how to brew it,” snapped Hermione. Her ears were positively glowing now, shoulders hunched and it struck Ron suddenly that maybe the reason she didn’t want to say was that it might point to someone specific that Hermione was attracted to. Maybe even someone he knew.

His stomach lurched again, uncomfortably, as options flitted through his brain at lightning speed.

McLaggen? Ugh. No way. Krum? He didn’t think Hermione had spoken to him since the end of 4th year.

“Come on, Hermione, what does it matter if you tell us? It’s just a stupid potion.”

Hermione scowled at him. “If it doesn’t matter to you so much, why don’t you tell us what _you_ smelled?”

Ron shrugged. “Dunno, it smelled like Honeydukes, kinda. And that smell you get when you open the trunk up with all the Quidditch balls, y’know the one, Harry?”

“Mm,” said Harry.

“And?” asked Hermione, strangely fierce. Her grip on her bag was so tight now her knuckles were nearly white.

“And nothing. That was it.”

Well, there had been one other thing, now that he thought of it. Something familiar and warm and good. Something that he’d smiled at, instinctively, when he’d picked it out of the sugar and the leather. But for the life of him, Ron couldn’t place it.

Ah, well. Probably didn’t matter much. He shook off the thought.

“Oh,” Hermione said, her voice very small. Ron glanced at her, surprised by the way the fight seemed to have gone out of her all at once, like a balloon losing air.

“Hey...” he said, uncertain now. “Listen, I was just— you don’t have to tell me, you know, it’s fine.”

The expression on Hermione’s face was squeezing the breath inside his lungs and his stomach gave yet another unpleasant twist, this time bordering on painful. He scratched at his chest uncomfortably. Maybe he was hungry.

“Want to go get something to eat?” he asked but Hermione shook her head.

“I have to go to the library,” she said and without another word turned off down the corridor in the opposite direction. Ron stared after her.

“What? That’s... that’s not even the way to the library!” he yelled after her, but she vanished around the corner without looking back. “Blimey,” he muttered. “Harry, what do you suppose all that was about?”

Harry blinked, as though suddenly realizing that Hermione had gone at all, and Ron squashed an irritated sigh.

“She’ll cool down,” Harry offered, then, turning to examine Ron. “The library always helps.” Ron shrugged.

“Suppose so,” he said, uneasy. Fighting with Hermione was never fun – and not just because she wouldn’t let him copy her essays when she was angry with him, but because most times now she stopped talking to him altogether. And Ron liked talking to Hermione. He liked when something offhanded he’d said made her laugh, made her scrunch her nose all up and giggle through her fingers.

“Come on,” Harry said, nudging him. Whatever cloud had been hanging over his head seemed to have cleared for the moment. “I’m starved.”

Ron nudged him back and they headed off down to the Great Hall together, minds firmly fixed on obtaining a snack.

Well, mostly fixed on obtaining a snack. Ron scarfed down his pudding with gusto, but even as he was blissfully piling food onto his plate, he couldn’t help but let his thoughts drift back to Hermione.

What was her deal anyway? It was just a stupid potion. Slughorn had even said it didn’t create love or anything so it wasn’t like it could do any_ permanent_ damage. What did she care if Ron knew what she’d smelled in the potion’s smoke?

“She’s being ridiculous,” Ron muttered through a mouthful of tart. He looked sideways at Harry for assurance, but Harry was staring into space, fork frozen halfway to his mouth.

“Harry?” Ron asked, swallowing his mouthful.

“He’s not eating,” Harry said, scowling. “Why isn’t he eating? What’s he planning?”

Ron blinked. “Who?”

“Malfoy.”

Oh, Merlin’s great saggy britches. “C’mon, Harry, not this again,” Ron groaned. “He’s a git. Who cares if he’s not eating dinner?”

Harry’s scowl deepened and he stuck the fork in his mouth. “It could be a conspiracy,” he said through a mouthful of food and Ron rolled his eyes.

“You’re the bloody conspiracy, mate,” he informed his best friend and an expression of wry amusement darted across Harry’s face.

A thought struck Ron then, studying the sheepish way Harry grinned back at him, the way the light slanted across his face. Maybe the reason Hermione had been so tight-lipped about her amortentia experience was sitting beside him with his cheeks full of tart.

Ron’s palms went clammy and he let his fork go limp in his fingers. “Hey, Harry...” he began, not sure if he really wanted the answer to the question he was about to ask. “What, uh. That potion today...”

Harry raised an eyebrow at him, mouth still full.

“What did you smell? In the smoke, I mean.”

Harry swallowed, pondering the question. “Dunno, some of it was kinda all mixed up? I smelled broomstick polish for sure. And treacle tart. And something else, couldn’t quite figure it out, though.”

Ron thought again of that soft, warm smell, calm and constant and familiar, and felt something cold slide in between his ribs.

“Like perfume or something?” he asked, trying desperately to sound casual but Harry shook his head.

“Nah, more like...” he frowned down at his plate, clearly trying to come up with a comparison. “Remember when we did that whole bit last year on grooming potions? Stuff for hair and skin and all that? Kinda reminded me of one of those.”

Ron frowned. “You’re attracted to skin potions?”

Harry turned a splotchy red and shoved at his shoulder. “Shut up,” he said, grinning. “You’re attracted to Quidditch balls.”

“Am not!” Ron protested. Down the table, Seamus leaned over across Dean to grin at them.

“Oi! Weasley’s into balls, that it?”

Ron threw a bread roll at him as they dissolved into laughter.

The ache in his chest eased slightly. Hermione didn’t use anything on her hair or skin, as far as he knew. She’d said as much, back in fourth year after the Yule Ball that it was too much of a pain to do all the fancy hair treatments every day. Which made perfect sense to Ron – why waste all that time doing something she didn’t want to do? Besides, Hermione was already pretty.

The thought crystallized in his brain, sudden and bright and cold, and Ron sat stunned for a moment as the conversation around him shifted to other topics.

Hermione was pretty? Well, sure, yeah. It wasn’t like she _wasn’t_ pretty. He supposed if asked he’d have to say that she fell on the pretty side of the scale. If anyone asked, of course. It wasn’t like Ron sat around daydreaming about the way she’d beam at him when he’d worked through a particularly difficult spell, or the way she’d lean in next to him when she got excited about pointing out a passage in one of their spellbooks.

Ron swallowed.

He thought about his own potion, the way it had smelled, and he thought about that familiar warm unidentifiable scent, and a suspicion grew in the back of his mind.

What if…

No. It couldn’t be.

… Could it?

Ron stood up abruptly, cutting Dean off mid-sentence as everyone turned to look up at him in surprise.

“Alright?” Harry asked, blinking up at him, but Ron just gestured vaguely at the doors.

“Gotta go. Got... essays to write.”

“What?” Harry sounded bewildered but Ron didn’t take the time to explain, already halfway down the aisle towards the doors leading into the entrance hall.

She’d be in the library. Hermione only had two states of existence – either she was currently in the library or she was on her way there.

Ron took the stairs two at a time, barely stopping to consider why this was suddenly the most important thing in the entire world. It didn’t matter – it just _was._

He skidded to a stop on the landing, turning the corner and striding down the corridor.

He’d just have to position himself near enough to Hermione under the guise of apologizing, just enough so he could see if she reminded him of that last unidentifiable scent and then—

Ron skidded to a halt so abruptly that one of the occupants of the painting nearest him raised an eyebrow in alarm. “Alright there, laddie?” the painting asked, but Ron wasn’t listening.

And then what? What if it actually _was _Hermione he’d smelled in the drifting fumes of the amortentia?

If it was, then that meant... Ron swallowed as a sudden twist of nerves fluttered delicate butterfly wings against his rib cage.

That meant he was attracted to Hermione.

For some reason, he thought back to their fourth year. To being uncomfortable in his too-short dress robes, tugging at the sleeves. To the grimace on Harry’s face as McGonagall explained that the Champions danced first.

He remembered looking up and seeing Hermione, but not Hermione, a girl with Hermione’s face and Hermione’s smile, but a girl he barely recognized and he remembered the way his heart had constricted tight and then leapt, speeding up to a hum all at once. He remembered the heat under his collar, crawling up beneath the frills he hadn’t quite managed to charm away and he remembered the relief in her expression as she’d recognized him, the tiny wave she’d given him even as she curled her other arm around Viktor Krum’s bicep.

He remembered the hot flash of jealousy that burned all the way to the tips of his fingers and he remembered Padma Patil next to him commenting about Hermione’s hair with something approaching awe.

He remembered wishing, desperately in that moment beneath the faerie lights, that Hermione was there to dance with him.

“Bloody hell,” Ron mumbled, stomach sinking.

That was it, then, wasn’t it? He fancied Hermione Granger.

He groaned softly and pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. This couldn’t be happening. On top of everything else weird about this school year, he had to go on and develop a crush on one of his best friends.

He swallowed hard past the lump in his throat, heavy and burning with embarrassment. What were the odds that Hermione would even look twice in his direction? Not when she’d already dated a famous Quidditch player and when their trio also contained the bloody Boy Who Lived.

Not that Ron blamed Harry. Harry had an absentminded sort of charm about him, the kind where he didn’t even realize he was being charming. Ron had personally witnessed at least half the girls in their year and a good number of the blokes too do a double take at an offhanded smile of thanks from the famous Harry Potter. Who said Hermione would be any different?

Feeling rather put out, Ron shoved his hands in his pockets and turned the opposite way down the corridor, away from the library and towards the staircase leading up to the Gryffindor common room. It was always full of people; he’d be sure to find someone to distract himself with there. Maybe play some Exploding Snap or some chess or something.

But when he’d said the password and clambered through the portrait hole, he found the common room to be mostly deserted, most of the House still at dinner except for one lone figure curled into a ball in one of the big squashy armchairs near the fire, nose buried in her textbook.

Hermione looked up as Ron froze awkwardly, one leg still half-raised from climbing through the portrait hole.

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” Ron said back. Hermione watched him for a moment before returning her gaze to her book. Ron swallowed and crossed the common room.

He stood next to her armchair, waiting until she looked up at him, her brow faintly creased in irritation.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out and the expression on her face melted into surprise. “I shouldn’t have pushed you. About the potion, I mean. You don’t have to tell me what it smelled like if you don’t want to.”

Hermione looked stunned, the book actually slipping a bit in her grasp before she tightened her grip on it. “Oh. Um. That’s… that’s very nice of you, Ron. Thank you.”

“Welcome.” Ron shifted a bit onto the balls of his feet. His palms were itching, sweating nervously, and he awkwardly tried to wipe them on his robes. “You… are you still mad at me?”

Hermione smiled and Ron’s heart thumped. Oh, Merlin, was this what it was going to be like now? All the time? She smiled and he had a bloody heart attack?

“I suppose not,” she said, airily, and Ron grinned at her, relieved. He stepped over her bookbag, sitting slumped at the foot of the armchair, and dropped into the second chair next to her.

“Whatcha reading?”

Hermione lifted the book so he could see the title. “Trying to get ahead on arithmancy.”

“You mean more than your usual two or three chapters?” Ron teased and was pleased to see Hermione grin, the expression rueful.

“I just want to be prepared,” she said and Ron snorted.

“Yeah, yeah, we know,” he said. He stretched his arms above his head, feeling his spine pop before slumping back into the chair. Well, here she was. And here he was. Here they were. How was he going to test out his hypothesis? He couldn’t exactly just ask Hermione about it, now could he?

Or... could he? She was his best friend. It wasn’t like she’d make fun of him. If anything, if it wasn’t her, she’d probably be the best person to ask for help identifying the mystery smell. Probably make some sort of graph or chart or something and charm the ink to be different colors to help him keep track of every girl in their year.

“What’s so funny?”

Ron blinked, tearing his eyes from the fire. He hadn’t even realized he’d been grinning. “Uh. Nothing. Just thinking.”

Hermione raised an eyebrow and Ron took a deep breath. Bloody hell. He was actually going to do this, wasn’t he?

“Hey, Hermione...” he began, uncertain, then stopped. Hermione waited for a beat and, when he didn’t say anything, sat up a bit and closed her arithmancy textbook.

“Are you ok?” she asked, concerned, and Ron sucked in an unsteady breath. Why was this so difficult? Hermione was one of two people on the entire planet who knew him better than anyone else. Even if he was wrong – and there was a steadily growing conviction pulsing in the middle of his chest that he wasn’t – then it wasn’t like she was going to stop being his friend or anything.

Stop being such a bloody wimp, Ron!

He let the breath out with a whoosh. “Listen. About potions...”

Hermione raised an eyebrow, but just then, there was a commotion from front of the room as the portrait swung back and what had to be the entirety of the Gryffindor House came spilling into the common room, laughing and yelling and jostling each other.

Ron deflated, just a bit. There was no way he could say anything now.

Hermione seemed to sense that the moment had passed as well, because she sank back in the chair again, pulling her book up to her chest.

There was an awkward pause that Ron desperately tried to ignore by scanning the group of Gryffindors for Harry. But, funnily enough, it wasn’t Harry that deliberately caught his eye first.

Lavender Brown touched Parvati on the arm, whispering something in her ear before peeling away from her friend and making a beeline for him.

Which was… odd. As far as he knew, Ron didn’t have much to say to Lavender Brown. Maybe she wanted Hermione for something?

“Ron!” Lavender squealed, apparently delighted by his very existence, which was rather nice, except _what_?

“Uh, hi, Lavender?” Ron said, the hello coming out more like a question. Lavender flopped dramatically onto the carpet in front of the fire with a groan.

“Wasn’t potions today, like, totally insane?” she said, tipping her head up to look at him. She was beaming at him like he was the only thing that she ever wanted to look at, which to be honest felt sort of flattering. It was nice to be looked at like that, like how Ron imagined Harry probably got looked at.

“Uh… yeah,” he said, realizing that Lavender was waiting for a reply. “It was.”

He waited for Hermione to chime in, but she had gone quiet next to him. When he chanced a glance over at her, she’d opened her book back up and was ducked down behind it, slumped so far down in the chair Ron couldn’t see much of her face.

“I just thought the amortentia was just _so_ romantic,” Lavender said, and Ron returned his attention back to her. Extraordinarily, she was still looking at him. “Didn’t you?”

“Sure,” Ron said. At that point, he probably would have said sure to just about anything. He wasn’t entirely sure this whole day wasn’t some sort of surreal dream. Maybe he fell asleep in charms or something? Or maybe he’d partnered with Neville and this was some sort of magically induced coma hallucination.

Across the common room, Parvati called Lavender’s name and Lavender pushed herself up on her elbows to see. She rolled her eyes and got to her feet.

“Sorry, have to talk later,” she said, still apparently talking to him, and winked. Actually winked. Then she stepped over Hermione’s bag and squeezed between the two armchairs, brushing Ron’s shoulder as she walked by – and he smelled it.

That same soft, warm, comfortable smell.

“Oh,” Ron said, twisting in his chair to get a look at Lavender walking away. _That_ must be why it was familiar. He’d probably walked past Lavender Brown dozens of times. He must have just not ever noticed that he was wildly attracted to her. That kind of thing could slip by a guy, you know?

But that’s what that meant, right? That’s what amortentia did.

The portrait swung open again, this time allowing an extremely grumpylooking Harry Potter to stumble into the common room. Ron caught sight of the look on Harry’s face – some mixture of frustration and confusion – and pushed bewildering thoughts of Lavender Brown away because damn it, he was a good friend and much to his chagrin, he recognized Harry’s if-i-don’t-talk-about-draco-malfoy-in-the-next-ten-seconds-i’ll-explode expression.

“Looks like Harry might’ve run into Malfoy,” Ron said, glancing at Hermione. But Hermione didn’t look up from her book. If anything, she hunched her shoulders a little further down into the squashy cushions.

But… she’d said she wasn’t mad at him anymore. Ron’s heart gave an unhappy little thump in his chest.

“Hermione--” he began, but Hermione cut him off by closing her book with an audible snap, jolting to her feet and grabbing her bag from off the floor.

She turned away from him. “Let’s go see what Malfoy did this time, then,” she said, and Ron stared after her, bewildered yet again, as she marched across the common room towards where Harry was standing in the corner, frowning rather viciously at the wall, clearly lost in thought.

Women. Seriously, would he _ever_ understand them?

He started after her, feeling like he might be missing something huge, when something tapped him on the shoulder.

Ron turned to find Lavender standing behind him again, tucking one of her soft curls behind her ear. “I forgot,” she said and held out a small glass vial. Ron took it, peering at the thick creamy liquid that seemed to be suspended inside.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s a skin-softening potion! I borrowed it because the air in here has just been _so_ dry and is really destroying my hands.” Lavender reached for him then, hooking two fingers playfully round his wrist and Ron’s mouth went suddenly and abruptly dry.

“See?” she murmured, brushing silk-smooth fingertips along the delicate skin at his wrist.

Ron made a gurgling sort of noise, heat sweeping up into his cheeks. His heart hammered against his rib cage and his fingers sort of involuntarily clenched around the little potion bottle.

“Very, uh. Smooth,” he managed to stammer. Lavender giggled and dropped his hand.

“Make sure that gets back to Hermione for me, would you, Ron?”

And with another wink and a smile, she turned and practically skipped off across the common room, back to where Parvati was clearly waiting expectantly for details about the conversation.

Ron stared down at the small crystalline vial in the palm of his hand, heart in his throat. He popped the top of the vial and slowly, carefully, raised it to his nose and inhaled.

“Oh,” he said, warmth surging through his blood. He capped the vial and turned around.

But the corner was empty – Harry and Hermione had gone.

Ron stood there for a moment, the vial of potion in his hand, and stared at the place where his friends should have been. Hurt sank like a stone into the pit of his stomach – what, they were in such a bloody hurry they couldn’t have waited for him?

“Ron!” Parvati waved at him from the corner. Seamus and Dean seemed to have joined them, making it a foursome. “Get over here. We’re playing cards!”

Lavender elbowed her hard in the ribs and Parvati dissolved into giggles.

Ron looked back at the corner, then over to where Lavender Brown was making an obvious space for him on the couch next to her.

“Right, then,” he muttered and shoved the vial into his pocket.

If Harry and Hermione wanted to go have private little chats, that was perfectly fine by him. He didn’t need them anyway. He had other friends to hang out with.

Besides, who cared what the amortentia smelled like? It was just a stupid potion.

Didn’t mean a damn thing.


End file.
